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"Chessy, baby, don’t say that Nothing is unfixable We can overcoether, I swear it"

She yanked her head so that her eyes were boring straight into his "You dumped me for a prospective client on our anniversary I sat there for an hour over cold food after you promised me you’d be there, that you’d only be twenty ly

Tate reared back with a frown "What did I lie to you about?"

Her gaze was full of scorn and rising fury

"You just don’t get it, do you?" she raged "You call me from work and say you were detained and that you’d be there in twentya client--a gorgeous female client as all over you--at the sa for her husband You lied to me Lies of omission are still lies You tried to hide frooddamn anniversary and you stood there in the bar with her, s, while I was just a few yards away realizing that I’d been stood up by my husband on our anniversary A day that used toto you And now? I have no idea where I stand with you, Tate"

"How long have you felt this way?" he asked softly, cutting to the heart of the ht, and figure out where he’d gone wrong

She sighed, a heavy sigh of weariness and defeat "Forever? Or at least it seeuess that’s what upsets me the most I knoe’re capable of, but in the last two years, you’ve drifted further and further away from me, and while I used to be at the top of your list of priorities, I doubt I even rate in the top five at this point You certainly don’t act as though I have any priority in your life"

She turned to look at hi herself for what she was going to say next

She huffed out her breath and squared her shoulders before lifting her gaze to lock with his

"Are you cheating on me, Tate? Is that what all the ‘business calls’ have been about? Is that where you’re spending your tiasted by her question that momentarily all he was able to do was stare openo on no longer Sitting there while she tortured herself was killing hiony The hell he’d let her suffer under such er

And then her next words stopped hiht train She lifted her head, all the life gone frohting a fight he hadn’t realized she aging Tears burned hot and jagged at the corners of his eyes, his jaw locked like iron, her words tiny darts right through his heart

"I want out, Tate I can’t take this anymore"

FOUR

CHESSY clamped her hand over her istered the shock and devastation in Tate’s eyes as they hit him with the force of a punch in the face